


all the pretty things that we could be

by mockingejay



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, alright kiddies you asked for it, best friend's sibling au, i posted this on tumblr and u guys liked it so ... here, i will continue this at some point but u know, prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockingejay/pseuds/mockingejay
Summary: Jake is best friends with Amy's brother.Things go about as well as you'd expect.





	all the pretty things that we could be

**Author's Note:**

> For full effect, I recommend listening to 'Little Numbers' by BOY while you read.

“ _ Manny! _ ”

 

Amy’s head snaps up from where it was buried in her book. Not that she’s at all surprised by someone yelling in the house - growing up with seven brothers has left her mostly desensitised (and probably partially deaf) to loud noises coming from nowhere at all hours of the night. Over the years, Amy had learned to block out the incessant yammering of seven slightly insane extroverts, but this voice was different. 

 

The disembodied voice coming from her kitchen didn’t belong to any of her brothers - four had moved out years ago and the twins were out of town, leaving just Amy and Manny at home. But Manny had class all morning and wouldn’t be home until later, which meant that --  _ oh.  _ She’s surprised she hadn’t recognised it immediately. 

 

The unmistakable voice of one  _ Jacob Peralta _ is echoing through her house. 

 

Manny and Jake had met during their first semester of college and bonded instantly. Jake didn’t have a whole lot of family, and since Manny still lived at home he insisted on bringing him to all their family holiday celebrations (or as Peralta called them,  _ Staying Up With the Santiagos _ ) so he wouldn’t sit in his apartment watching football. It meant Jake and Amy had become… Acquainted. Out of necessity. Nothing genuine. Really. 

 

"Manuel Victor Santiago, I will search this house --"

 

“ _Dios mio_ ,” she mutters under her breath. She bookmarks her page in _A Brief History of US Politics_ - because not even under duress would she dog-ear a page, she’s not a savage -  and slams the cover shut before crossing the room to her open door and sticking her head out to yell into the hallway. “Shut _up,_ Peralta!”

 

From down the stairs she can hear a distant banging, followed by a vaguely intelligible string of profanity. She laughs to herself, knowing Peralta has just stumbled over his always-untied shoelaces and fallen face first into a kitchen cupboard. 

 

“Manny?” He calls hesitantly up the stairs, voice muffled by the distance between them.

 

She rolls her eyes towards the ceiling and sighs.  _ Idiot.  _ Knowing she’ll never get her focus back now because Peralta is quite possibly a twelve year old stuck in an adult body and consequently  _ the  _ most distracting person on the planet (for reasons that have everything to do with his annoying teasing and nothing to do with his maybe only slightly endearing jokes and kind of adorable face and --  _ okay. Rein it in, Amy) _ , she figures she can at least humour him. When she rounds the corner to where he’s standing in the kitchen, he jumps at the sight of her and leans over in a poor attempt at looking casual. 

 

His case isn’t helped when his elbow misses the counter he was trying to lean on and he’s halfway to the ground before he catches himself. 

 

(Amy doesn’t bother hiding her laugh.)

 

When he finally gets his footing again he glances up at her, eyes wandering inquisitively over her face. She can see a flash of confusion in his eyes for a split second, immediately followed by the little flicker of recognition that lights up his warm brown eyes when he realises who she is. "Amy," he says with a little smile, eyes never leaving hers. She wonders if he realises that she's standing there laughing at him, but the way he lets his eyes roam over her face tells her he probably doesn't care anyway. 

 

“What are you doing?” she says, shaking her head at him but unable to stop her mouth from curling up in a smile. 

 

“Just chillin’, you know. Waiting for Manny,” he says in a voice that intrigues her, laced with the smallest hint of frantic energy. Like he’s nervous. 

 

She raises a doubtful eyebrow at him. “I got that. But since when does Manny hang out in the kitchen?”

 

He throws his head back, knowing he’s been caught in a lie, and lets out a resigned sigh towards the ceiling. He pulls an opened packet of pretzels out from behind his back. She bites her lip around her emerging grin and fixes him with a stern expression.

 

“You know they’re gluten-free, right? Like, healthy?”

 

He lets out a girlish shriek, flinging the bag onto the counter like he’s been burned. Amy has to cover her face with hands to hide her laugh. She picks up a discarded pretzel and throws it at his head, giggling as he dramatically ducks out of the way, and he has the nerve to feign a wounded look. He drops the act quickly though, getting an impish look on his face and leaning towards her. 

 

“Quick question, what’s your middle name?”

 

She looks at him in disbelief. “I don’t  _ have  _ a middle name.”

 

He nods to himself like he’s making a mental note, then resumes his earlier look of horror.  "Amelia Santiago --"

 

"My name is not Amelia --"

 

"Thou hast  _ betrayed _ me."

 

She rolls her eyes at him, trying to tame the smile she can feel spreading across her face again. "Shut up."

 

“Make me,” he says, and his words might have sparked something in her chest if he hadn’t stuck his tongue out at her like an  _ actual twelve year old.  _ He picks a stray pretzel off the counter and throws it at her head, grinning when she puts on a shocked expression and gasps for dramatic effect. 

 

“Traitor,” she hisses in a conspiratorial whisper, and promptly flings the remaining contents of the bag in his direction. He lets out a high pitched shriek in response.

 

"Hey, not fair! I have no ammunition!" He yells, fumbling for the nearest object with which he can return fire while Amy continues to pelt him with leftover pretzels. She's suddenly blinded by a cloud of white powder and hears Jake laughing on the other side, a triumphant "aha!" making its way through the fog of icing sugar he's dumped on her head. 

 

When the cloud dissipates she glares at him through the remaining haze. "You're  _ dead _ ," she tells him, and there must be something in her eyes that tells him she's serious, because he grins and bolts out of the kitchen, leaving behind swirling streams of white powder that dance around in the afternoon sunlight. 

 

She takes off after him instantly, catching up to him when he runs into the corner of the table in the living room (briefly, Amy thinks: take  _ that _ , Luis, I  _ told _ you moving it two inches to the left would be hilarious). He breaks away again when they get to the hallway, his longer legs giving him an advantage on the straighter stretches. She can hear his bright laughter echoing down the hall as she loses sight of him, watching as he becomes a blurred flurry of unruly curls as he rounds the corner ahead of her. The sparkling afternoon sun and the adrenaline and the sound of him laughing must be doing something strange to her brain, because for a second her competitive streak dims and dies and she doesn’t want to catch him. For one moment, she wants to let him get away so all the joy between them now won’t ever have to end. 

 

It only lasts for a moment, but it’s enough to throw her whole world slightly off its axis. She tries to ignore the flutter of excitement in her chest, instead pushing her aching leg muscles forward until he’s back in her sights. 

 

When she finally catches up to him again they're back in the kitchen. She's got him cornered and he slips trying to turn, sending himself flying face first towards the ground for the second time that afternoon. She catches him before he can hit the floor, letting him grab onto her to steady himself. 

 

(It’s a cliche, she knows, but the way he holds onto her so delicately, even though she’s the only thing keeping him upright, sparks a flame of something warm in her chest. 

 

It feels like the start of something.)

 

When he's finally upright again they're both breathless and giggling, and Amy must be lightheaded from all the adrenaline because it almost seems like he's leaning in, almost feels like his blinding smile keeps getting closer and closer, and then --

 

"Can I kiss you?" 

 

He whispers it like someone might overhear, like he's worried if he's too loud he'll scare her off and send her running from him again. For a second she thinks he’s joking, just dizzy from the thrill of the chase, but there's a uniquely  _ Jake  _ kind of sincerity hidden underneath all his layers of levity. She can see a low-burning flame at the back of his dark eyes, ready to ignite and consume them both. She watches that little flicker for one endless second, sees the reflection of her wide eyes in his, and feels herself nod. Slowly, purposefully, she lets him pull her into him, and the world shifts further and further askew. 

 

When he kisses her it’s soft,  _ so _ soft, like he's scared she's going to disappear. 

 

A wave of affection washes over her and she doesn’t even try to hide her smile. After a few seconds she feels the corners of his mouth drawing up to mirror her joy, and she runs careful fingers through his wild curls as if to say  _ I can’t believe this is actually (finally) happening. _

 

It's over far too quickly, so she laces her arms around the back of his neck and pulls him back to her again. She kisses him firmly, like a promise, like a dare. He lets his fingers dig into her waist in a way that makes her dizzy, so she leans into him a little more, loving the smile she can still feel pressed against her lips -- 

 

The front door slams open somewhere behind them. They jump away from each other like they’ve been shocked, each giggling at the other’s panic when their eyes meet.

 

(Amy notes the pink blush creeping onto his cheeks and makes a point to do whatever she can to see it again.)

 

He pulls her back towards him for one quick, final kiss as Manny’s footsteps get louder and his voice carries down the hallway. She smiles against his mouth again, laughing as she pulls away and turns to race up the stairs.

 

“Hey,” he whisper-shouts after her, making her turn back to him on the third step. “I really like you.”

 

Amy has to close her eyes against the all-consuming emotion that runs through her. In the silence between Manny’s encroaching footsteps, her heart beats a steady rhythm against her ribcage:  _ happy happy happy. _

 

She opens her eyes again and finds him still staring at her in wonder. “I like you too.”

 

She catches the beginnings of his smile out of the corner of her eye as she turns away, and the image of that smile like sunshine stays burned into her eyelids for the rest of the afternoon, all the way into tomorrow when he sneaks her number out of Manny’s phone and asks her out. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends.
> 
> A lovely Tumblr anon sent me a prompt to write Jake and Amy in a 'best friend's sibling au' so here we are! This was posted on Tumblr a while ago (I'm santiagostyle) but you guys seemed to like it so I thought I may as well upload it here too. I have plans to continue this (there's another chapter in the works) but I'm working on some other exciting fics atm too so let's see how we go.
> 
> Thanks for reading! X


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